


How It Is

by imtelevisionsmoirarose



Series: The Commonplace Book [1]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Death, David Rose Deserves Nice Things, David Rose is a Good Person, David Rose is a Nice Person, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Death is not David or Patrick, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Patrick Brewer, Patrick Brewer loves David Rose, Post-Canon, Rosehill Cottage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29314899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imtelevisionsmoirarose/pseuds/imtelevisionsmoirarose
Summary: Patrick and David share a tender moment at home after Johnny's death, several years post-canon.Dead Dove: Do Not Eat
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: The Commonplace Book [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2153289
Comments: 24
Kudos: 106





	How It Is

**Author's Note:**

> This new series came to me as I was updating my own commonplace book with this poem. I know it's technically about the poet's friend committing suicide but when I read it, this little fic popped into my head and I couldn't help myself. 
> 
> I'm on tumblr at http://im-televisions-moira-rose.tumblr.com/
> 
> Read about [what a commonplace book is here](https://notebookofghosts.com/2018/02/25/a-brief-guide-to-keeping-a-commonplace-book/).

**Patrick Brewer's Commonplace Book, Volume 9, Page 73**

**How It Is**

Maxine Kumin

_Shall I say how it is in your clothes?_

_A month after your death I wear your blue jacket._

_The dog at the center of my life recognizes_

_you’ve come to visit, he’s ecstatic._

_In the left pocket, a hole._

_In the right, a parking ticket_

_delivered up last August on Bay State Road._

_In my heart, a scatter like milkweed,_

_a flinging from the pods of the soul._

_My skin presses your old outline._

_It is hot and dry inside._

_I think of the last day of your life,_

_old friend, how I would unwind it, paste_

_it together in a different collage,_

_back from the death car idling in the garage,_

_back up the stairs, your praying hands unlaced,_

_reassembling the bits of bread and tuna fish_

_into a ceremony of sandwich,_

_running the home movie backward to a space_

_we could be easy in, a kitchen place_

_with vodka and ice, our words like living meat._

_Dear friend, you have excited crowds_

_with your example. They swell_

_like wine bags, straining at your seams._

_I will be years gathering up our words,_

_fishing out letters, snapshots, stains,_

_leaning my ribs against this durable cloth_

_to put on the dumb blue blazer of your death._

* * *

Patrick wakes up in the oversized arm chair in their living room and the sun has set. He wipes his face sleepily and takes a moment to remember where he is.

He and David had arrived home from the airport at about 11 in the morning. David had gone directly and wordlessly up to their bedroom, showered with Patrick and then collapsed. Patrick had tucked him in and then let him be—god knows he needed the rest. While David slept, he had intended to get a head start on the reading for his upcoming small business seminar during the quiet of the early afternoon but the happenings of the last couple weeks—the last-minute flights to and from LA, working with Moira to sift through all the end of life paperwork, helping David with the funeral and burial arrangements, the emotional brutality of sitting shiva—caught up to him all at once and he surrendered peacefully to the coziness of the afghan his mom crocheted them last Christmas, book resting open and forgotten in his limp hand.

The house is quiet and dark, spare for the lamp on the side table next to his chair. He clears his throat and sits up, wincing. Now that he’s about to round 40, he actually has to pay attention to where he lets his body relax or else he regrets it afterwards.

“David?” He calls tentatively—not loud enough to wake him upstairs, but loud enough to get his attention if he’s not asleep.

No answer. 

He stands up stiffly and shuffles out of the room and down the hall in his thick socks to the base of the stairs.

“David?” He calls again. Still nothing. _He should at least check on him,_ Patrick thinks as he makes his way up.

When he rounds the corner to the master, David isn’t in bed, but the comforter is crumpled the way David always sleeps with it when he’s alone, making a silk blend husband to wrap himself around. The bedroom is mostly dark in the dusk but Patrick notices warm light streaming in from the doorway to their walk-in closet.

One of David’s prerequisites of the cottage purchase was that they combine the master, at the time of purchase, with the adjacent bedroom in order to make a mega closet/state-of-the-art master bath. And Patrick had promised to make him happy. So. That was that. And now, their walk-in really could comfortably fit several mattresses in it, but it also fit David’s entire wardrobe, including massive, custom cedar storage for his knits. Patrick really loves his husband in a sweater.

He quietly pads to the edge of the doorway and peeks inside the room. David is curled on the window seat on the far wall, feet tucked up, gazing out at their garden in the early evening light—one of many perks of making a closet out of a bedroom. David sometimes takes his coffee there in the mornings and it helps him start the day right when he wakes up and feels _off_ —Patrick knows being surrounded by things he loves makes him happy.

Patrick notices he’s in his pajamas but he’s also wearing an achingly familiar blue suit jacket, the sleeves just a bit short, grazing David’s graceful wrist bones. His face is dewy and his eyes are red under his glasses and Patrick hears a soft snort, which is his husband’s tell-tale crying noise—one of Patrick’s favorite things about him, much to David’s chagrin. David’s hair is messy and dirty and he’s only 9 days into Shloshim but his facial hair is growing in thick and dark. His chest contracts painfully as the reality of David’s grief hits him again. It’s so much harder without the constant distraction the last couple weeks of planning and rituals and ceremonies and visitors provided them.

“David.” Patrick gently says his name, like a prayer, like always. David’s name is always a prayer in his mouth.

David turns his head towards Patrick’s voice and his face wavers with emotion, his forehead creasing and corners of his mouth shaking. He clears his throat and looks down.

“Oh. Um. Hey.” He pulls on the sleeves of the suit jacket nervously and swings his feet down over the edge of the seat again. “Sorry. I was just, uh, hanging up some of Dad’s stuff that we brought back.”

“I could’ve helped.” Patrick gives his sympathetic upside down smile and slides across the hardwoods with his hands in his pockets, perching gently on the edge of the seat next to David.

“No. I know. I know.” David shakes his head and pats Patrick’s shoulder. “I just woke up like 20 minutes ago and I wanted to feel productive.”

“I know. I’m trying to keep my head busy too.”Patrick leans his shoulder against David, hands still in his pockets, turning his face to press a kiss to David’s temple.

“Yea. I just–” David, squeezes his eyes shut behind his dark frames and tilts his heads back, leaning in to Patrick’s weight. Patrick’s heart cracks as he watches a tear roll out of the corner of David’s eye and down the side of his face. “I was taking jackets out of dry cleaning bags and putting them on hangers when I got to this one. I thought we got rid of it, for obvious reasons.”

Patrick looks at the jacket again and his stomach flips. It’s the jacket from that day. His eyes are suddenly wet too and he holds his breath, waiting for what David says next. Waiting to see what he needs.

Patrick remembers the call vividly—Alexis crying on the phone in a desperate way he had never heard before. David falling into bed. David crying in the closet. David crying on the floor in the shower. He remembers sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the wall, finding it hard to breathe, the weight of grief stifling the oxygen in his collapsing chest.

He hears another snort.

“God Patrick. He must have been so scared,” David voice shakes, thick with tears. “We should have been there. He must have been so scared.”

Patricks arms are around David now, folding his husband against his chest, drawing him close. He sits back against the window and holds David tightly, feeling his body tremble.

“David.” Patrick just repeats his prayer over and over, hand in David’s hair. He doesn’t even realize he’s rocking gently. After a moment he tries again.

“David, you heard what the doctor said—it was instant. He was gone by the time the car crashed.”

David nods slightly against his shoulder, sniffling.

“Yeah but we don’t what he was thinking in his last minute. Maybe he realized. And he was alone.”

“David, you and I drive alone almost every day. It could easily happen to anyone when they’re alone; It doesn’t make you a bad son for not being there.” Patrick kisses the back of his neck softly. “All it would’ve done is get you injured in the accident. The world can only handle losing one Rose man at a time;” He shakes his head, his throat tight. “ _I_ can only handle losing one Rose man at a time.”

David sighs and Patrick feels his husband’s body soften against his chest. His heart aches.

“This jacket still smells like him.” David murmurs after a moment, and Patrick inhales against the collar and agrees. Fresh, like nice aftershave and peppermint and a hint of something woodsy. That was Mr. Rose— sharp as a tack.

“And look at what I found in the pocket.” David wipes his face with one hand and holds out a small rectangle of yellowed waxy paper in the other and Patrick takes it. It’s a receipt from the opening day of the apothecary.

“So I’m not the only sentimental one in the family.” Patrick smiles softly, his other arm rubbing David’s back.

“Mmm.” David gently squeezes his knee, studying the receipt. Patrick gives it back to David and pulls David back into his arms again. He clears his throat shakily.

“I miss him so much. I didn’t even think it was possible to feel like this. It’s just this massive hole that everything keeps getting sucked into.”

He wipes his face and takes a deep shuddering breath.

“Every morning this week I woke up and didn’t remember he was gone. I almost texted his number three separate times while we were in LA. While I was _actively_ in shiva.”

David snort sobs again against his chest.

“I don’t know how to be a good person without him.” He mumbles against Patrick’s shirt and Patrick inhales sharply, trying to keep his own eyes dry. He’s been working on helping David recognize this for years but David still gives his own tender, generous heart no credit.

He can feel his husband's tears soaking into his skin and kisses the back of his neck again, humming softly.

“Come get in bed with me.”

He helps David to his feet and gently slides the blazer off his shoulders and too-long arms. Hanging it carefully, he places it on the end of the rack of other suit jackets he recognizes as Johnny’s and ushers David back into the bedroom, flipping off the light in the closet.

“You undo blanket husband while I get undressed.” Patrick says, earning the smallest of smiles from David.

David takes off his glasses and climbs lazily into their big bed, unrolling the comforter back towards Patrick’s side. Patrick’s eyes shine wetly as he steps out of his sweatpants, shucking off his t-shirt and slipping in between the freshly unfurled sheets and the mattress.

“Lay here.” He directs, pulling David’s head to his chest.

“You’re lucky you only showered a few hours ago.” David grumbles, but he obliges, resting his right ear on the hot skin over his husband’s thrumming heart. Patrick feels David soften again, his energy lulling.

“David,” he starts, running a hand through his hair reassuringly, the other hand on the center of David’s back. “Your dad was so important to me. And I’m so honored to have been his son-in-law.”

He smiles to himself softly, thinking about his conversation with Johnny leading up to the wedding. He’d been so endearingly nervous sitting next to Patrick on the bed in room 7, reminding him acutely of another easily flustered Rose; Patrick’s stomach churns when he thinks about how he will never have that opportunity again.

“I learned so much from him about…how to love you.”

His voice catches and he pauses for a moment, still stroking David’s head.

“My dad is a good man and a great father, but he doesn’t have the same warmth and vulnerability that your dad did and I am thankful every single god-damn day that he was there for us from the start. I have never known another man that loved as much as your dad did.”

He pauses to kiss the crease in the middle of David’s brow gently.

“Except for you.”

David huffs wetly in disagreement and Patrick shakes his head, running his fingers up the hair at the back of David’s neck.

“You think people don’t see it, but they do, David. They see it every day. Like in January when you organized the winter clothing drive but you said it was because you were tired of the hideous scarves sitting in our lost and found, junking up the shop aesthetic. Or April when you planned Twyla’s cousin’s baby shower for free ‘just so she’d shut up about it and leave.’ Or last month when you emergency overnighted our facial product kit to Alexis in LA when the airline lost her luggage on her flight from New York.”

“All of those things were done to keep people from bothering me.”David gestures limply with one hand.

“Okay, David.”

Patrick leans down to kiss him on the mouth and raises his eyebrows.

“And we’ve been married for—what—7 years now? You’re certainly playing the long-con on me.”

‘Yes, well. I tricked you into business and then into marriage with my manly wiles.” David nods, kissing Patrick again. “I’m just biding my time now and reaping all the benefits.”

Patrick rolls his eyes and lays his head on the pillow, shaking it slightly. He looks back down at David.

“All I’m saying is that you were all your dad and I talked about on the off-chance we were ever alone together. He was so incredibly proud of you, David. Everything about you makes–“ Patrick winces. “–made him proud that you’re his son.”

David’s fingers squeeze the side of Patrick’s chest hard and he clears his throat and sniffs but says nothing. They are quiet, letting the peace of early evening wash over them as they melt into each other in their cool bed. After a long moment David clears his throat again and rocks his head against Patrick’s body.

“I think I want to sit a second shiva in our house. To honor Dad for all he did here. For the town. And for us.”

Patrick’s heart is gently shattering in his swelling chest and he’s overwhelmed with tenderness and affection for the soft, wounded man in his arms.

“David, that’s beautiful.”

He pulls David’s left hand up to his mouth and kisses the gold ring on his middle finger gently.

“I know everyone in town will want to help. I’ll call Twy about it in the morning and we’ll work on pulling it together. You’ll just have to make me a list.”

David nods, closing his eyes and settling in.

“Yep. But the first thing we need to do is cover the mirrors or else I won’t get anything else done because I’ll be too distracted by this fucking muff of a beard on my face.”

Patrick chuckles, reaching over to turn on the white noise machine.

“Okay, David.”


End file.
